Talking about rediscovering the joys of digging your own spuds! Just 12 weeks ago it was just a concept – but now, it’s a reality. Today we harvested our very first crop of potatoes.
Delighted with the thought of freshly dug spuds for tea, our potato harvest offered surprising results.
One of our first crops in our 12 month challenge, we had planted seed potatoes in two sections, namely: ‘Agria’ supermarket potatoes that had gone to seed in the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink, and ‘Nadine’ seed potatoes brought from the local Mitre 10 plant centre.
Both seed potatoes were prepared and planted the same way. Both test plots were treated with equal love – both watered, both ‘hilled’ appropriately as the plants grew, and both variants were harvested on the same day.
Prior to lifting the spuds, the supermarket seeded potato plants looked a little motley to be honest. We had been pre-warned that growing supermarket potatoes wouldn’t result well, being prone to insects and disease. We braced ourselves. Stunted in growth, the greenery of the plant looked a lot smaller its plant centre counterparts.
In contrast, the plant centre foliage was leafier, stems appeared stronger and the plant bigger by a third. Yet both variants had attracted insects and had holes in the leaves. Both looked a little worse for wear. This we expected to be honest. Potato plants aren’t the most glamorous in the garden, and usually found at the bottom of the garden tucked out of view behind the compost bin!
But today, when it came to digging up the potatoes — the result? Perfect, insect free, spuds. There was no difference at all between the two, in either quality or yield. Awesome.
Eager to harvest (and consume) we dug the lot up. Baby potatoes the size of large marbles grading to the size of a bar of soap, these beautiful spuds were aplenty. Plans are to brush off the dirt, and store those not about to be consumed, in the storage room.
Yum. Rediscover growing your own veges. You will pinch yourself for throwing away seeding potatoes if you don’t!
